Sunburn (9 page)

She swiped at her eye and turned back to him, her eyes creased in doubt. “What’s a Cinderella?”

He grinned, eager to erase all the sadness in her eyes. “It’s only the most awesome virgin drink ever! Pineapple juice, orange juice, lime, and lemon.” He readied the ingredients, feeling her gaze upon him.

She put her hand on his arm to get his attention. A sensual shiver ran up his spine. “You do understand why I can’t drink, right? I come from a family of addicts. The addictive gene is in me. I can’t slip up even once. I’m terrified I’ll fall into the same patterns.” She paused, her eyes haunted and dark. “I was addicted to something, to someone, once. And I didn’t recognize myself by the end. I can’t go back there again. I have to stay strong.”

His head spun. Who was this person to whom she was addicted? He had to know. Was she married before? Was it a boyfriend?

Who hurt her?

He had to know, but there’d be time to find out later. Right now, she looked ready to crumple. Damn. Their conversation had struck a nerve in her.

He rushed out from behind the bar, knowing only he had to make her feel better, and pulled her into his arms. She yielded, all warmth and softness against him. She laid her head against his neck, and a tear dripped onto his skin.

Shit.

“Patience,” he whispered into her hair. “Please don’t cry. I won’t let him hurt you.”

Apollo with all his heart was making a vow. He wouldn’t let anyone hurt her; not the demon, and certainly not the little shit who’d hurt her once before.

She looked up, tears streaming down her face and her chest rising and falling with shaky breaths. “I’m sorry. It’s not like me to cry. I don’t know what came over me!”

“By all the gods,” he murmured, in a trance. Even in pain, she was mesmerizing. There was a healthy sheen to her skin. Her cheeks were rosy with emotion. Stray hairs had escaped her ponytail, ornamenting her face. “You are so beautiful.”

Her lips parted in a welcome she probably didn’t even realize she was extending. She sighed, and her breath poured over him, heating him to the core. He had to kiss her. There was suddenly no option but to kiss her.

He brushed his lips against hers, feeling no resistance. He moved slowly, bestowing feather-light kisses all over her mouth. And then, shocking and exciting him, her tongue slid into his mouth. Penetrating, seeking more.

Hungry.

Inflamed, he held her tighter, moving his body between her legs as she sat on the bar stool. Their kiss deepened as their tongues played and probed. He bit her lip, none too gently, and she moaned.

Oh, sweet Pandora’s box!

But as quickly as the kiss had crushed them, it was over. Patience pulled away and out of his arms. Dazed, his heart palpitated as she scrambled off the stool. And before he could recover to stop her, Patience ran away down the wooden path toward the lobby.

Chapter 6

She was running away. Another woman was running away!

For one flash of a moment, Apollo saw red, remembering all the other women who’d run senselessly in terror. He visualized the long-dead Daphne, hastening away, begging to be transformed into a hard, emotionless piece of lumber in order to escape. He saw disloyal Marpessa, the girl who’d pledged her heart, and then deserted him for a mortal man. Needlessly terrified of him.

But this was different. Patience was scared, but not of him. He just knew it.

She was clearly afraid of where their passionate kiss would lead. And to be honest, so was he.

He hadn’t signed up for this. When he’d first seen his troubling visions, he’d only wanted to get to the bottom of them. To help an innocent woman, if he could. He hadn’t wanted to be swept up in Patience O’Connor’s tale of woe or to experience such an overwhelming instinct to make things better for her. He didn’t desire these feelings, these … signs of weakness.

After all, love equaled weakness, didn’t it? It brought one to one’s knees. It decimated and pulverized. Certainly love had done those things to him over and over again, and even his god’s heart was not impervious to the pain.

Not that his cousins Eryx and Dionysus would agree. As Artemis had correctly mentioned, both men had recently been punctured by love’s merciless shafts, and claimed it was the making of them. Even after having sacrificed so much for their mortal loves. And, as both his cousins had quietly stated to him not long ago, it was the best sex of their lives.

An intriguing thought, for one who’d had every kind of sex imaginable with a woman.

But love?

Not that he was even close to feeling anything resembling true love for Patience. That was just insane. No, he was just doing his duty as owner of the resort. Ensuring his guests were safe and sound and happy. It’s all he’d ever wanted, and he would do his job to the best of his abilities.

That
was why he’d spent the night on her balcony.
That
was why he followed her now.

It had nothing to do with wanting to know why their kiss terrified her. It didn’t mean he wanted to kiss her again. And again.

And again.

Ignoring the taunting laugh of skepticism sounding in his brain, he headed down the path to the lobby area.

He found her quickly enough. She’d never made it to the lobby. Instead, Patience had stopped at the alligator pen just adjacent to the main courtyard. The resort kept three large alligators on site, all handled by the best keepers money could buy. Apparently, the scaly creatures fascinated Patience.

She leaned against the strong wire fence, fingers gripping the wire so hard her knuckles showed white. She stared ahead, as if in deep concentration. Her eyes were trained, unseeing, on the largest of the alligators. Coco. And Coco was staring back.

Apollo checked the time on his watch. It was almost feeding time. No wonder Coco looked famished. The alligator took a few steps toward the area where Patience stood.

Maybe she shouldn’t stand so close to the pen.

“Patience.” She didn’t hear his call. She was too caught up in her thoughts, not even noticing all three of the alligators were now slowly moseying over. No doubt thinking she was the keeper, there to feed them.

“Patience,” he called again. “Come away from there.”

She turned and looked at him. Shock and desire written all through the scrunched lines on her face.

Her shock compounded when the fence gave out under her. The entire panel of the wire barrier just collapsed inward, making Patience fall right into the alligator pen. She lay there, still clutching the fence, dazed. Her knuckles bloodied from her fall on the ground.

“Mummy,” said a little boy around the corner. “That nice lady is going to play with the alley-gators.”

Apollo was stupefied as the mother picked up her child and spirited him away, screaming in horror. He turned his attention back to the pen, where the carnivores made their way over to the frozen Patience. Coco was practically in snapping distance.

“Oh dear,” whispered Patience, clearly too panicked to move. “Nice doggie.”

Fucking demons!

Apollo flew to her side and yanked her away from Coco’s snapping jaw, not caring who saw. He could deal with any aftermath later. He just had to get her out of there.

As Patience still mumbled about pretty doggies, he placed her gently under a nearby palm tree and fixed his eyes on the collapsed fence. As he concentrated on it, the fence moved back into place. He used the heat from his eyes to weld the broken wires together, leaving the fence stronger than it was previously. A disappointed Coco shuffled away to sun herself on a rock until the next opportunity presented itself.

He turned to Patience. “Are you okay?”

She gazed up, shaking and nodding her head at the same time. “Tell me the truth.”

“About what?”
Damn. Damn!

She gulped. “You healed my slashed wrist. You
flew
to me and pulled me out of the jaws of a crocodile.”

“Alligator,” he corrected.

She waved her hand in front of her face. “Whatever. Apollo, you’re very good at saving damsels in distress. Who the hell are you?”

He stared back, feeling true terror. He couldn’t do this. Certainly not with a woman who wasn’t even destined to be part of his future. Patience O’Connor was nothing to him! Nothing. There was no way he could tell her the truth.

But he had no option.

“Apollo?”

“I do have some special abilities, Patience,” he conceded, treading carefully. “It comes with the job, I guess. Fact is, I’m not really a bartender at this resort.”

He paused. She waited.

“I’m … I’m the owner.”

Her face changed. She waited some more, as if expecting a revelation of greater impact. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say she actually looked disappointed. In him. “The owner.”

He let out a nervous chuckle. “Yeah, I keep it under wraps. You know, in case people ask for discounts.”

She scrambled to her feet, sudden anger present, even in every movement of her joints. “The owner. Well, you can just call me fracking Dorothy of Oz!” She got close to him, stood on tiptoes, and put her finger near his nose. “There’s something you’re not telling me. Something’s not right here. I’ve felt it ever since I got off the plane. And you know what it is. You’re lying to me, Apollo Delos.”

“I’m not lying to you. Believe me.”

And this time, as she stormed off, he was too stunned to follow.

* * * *

Patience spent the rest of the morning feeling Apollo’s eyes upon her. Watching her. Watching out
for
her. Which was clearly ludicrous. It was simply because he’d helped her a couple of times. It didn’t mean he was her guardian angel, for Pete’s sake. She’d had a couple of strange accidents, and it made her even jumpier than usual.

Of course, if she bothered to admit it to herself, her luck had been unusually tragic for some time. Why, she’d taken that horrible spill getting onto the plane, although she’d chalked that up to her stupid heels. In fact, she was always falling over her feet these days. She’d never been blessed with coordination, but the past few months had been ridiculous.

And then there had been the accident with Mother. The collision that should have killed her but didn’t.

She stirred her ice water absentmindedly while at lunch with her friends. A lunch she could have spent with Apollo, only she was too much of a quivering mess and couldn’t trust herself not to jump his bones. So much for ultimate Mayan Riviera experiences.

What had she been thinking, kissing him like that?

Not that she should. He was obviously a liar. There was something up with him. What did he mean, “special abilities”? Maybe he was a clairvoyant? A clairvoyant resort owner who liked to mix drinks in his spare time. It even sounded weird.

Yet as odd as the whole situation was, something about it also felt right. Almost preordained. It was as if she’d driven in the wrong direction on a one-way street all her life, and someone had only just set her on the right path again. She didn’t feel in danger of hitting a wall anymore. Instead, she had the distinct impression Apollo was lighting the way for her, illuminating the right direction for her.

Maybe she’d hit her noggin while falling into Coco’s pen.

Doris crunched into her carrot salad. “So, thees Apollo owns the resort?”

“That’s what he said.”

“And,” Angie inquired, eyes wide, “he saved you from a crocodile?”

“Alligator.”

“Never mind that,” Angie was quick to reply. “Patience, you need to get with him!” She bit into her gourmet burger with gusto, as if emphasizing her point.

“I’m not
getting
with anyone,” Patience snarled, feeling moody. She frowned at Angie’s sizable portion of burger and fries, and glared at the garden salad on her own plate. “Where do you put all that food anyway, Angie? Your hair? None of it goes on your hips.”

Angie shrugged and popped a delectable greasy fry into her mouth. “You watch. I’ll get fat this trip.”

Patience stared and bit her tongue. She and her friend had different ideas about what made a fat woman.

She shouldn’t be snarky with Angie. It wasn’t her fault Apollo drove her to distraction.

She could have been lunching with him. Could have been watching him lick some other food off his fingers.

You know you want him.

And as soon as she heard the voice of the tiny devil on her shoulder, whispering in her ear, she heard another voice, that of the little angel on the other side.

Remember Foster. Remember what he did to you.

Touching her fingers to her brow, she frowned. She didn’t have much time to ponder Foster. There was a squeal, and suddenly three girls with ethereal good looks appeared at their table. The same who’d asked Apollo to play volleyball previously. All of them bearing T-shirts that said Muse Crew, tight little T-shirts that stretched across their goddess boobs. One of them addressed her, Doris, and Angie.

“I’m Candi,” she said, and then motioned to her equally divine counterparts. “And this is Polly and Uma! We’re here to help you have fun!” The three girls jumped up and down and clapped their hands.

Patience and her friends just stared.

Uma tugged Patience’s hands. “Come on, ladies! Salsa lessons starting by the pool in five minutes! We already have lots of hunky guys to use as dance partners!”

“I bet you do,” Doris drawled, getting up from her seat. She shrugged at Angie and Patience. “Oh, let’s go. I always wanted to do salsa. I have the temperament of a Latin woman.”

Angie followed, her hamburger forgotten.

“But,” Patience began, holding onto the table. She looked at Uma, pleading. “I can’t dance.”

Uma smiled as brightly as the sun shining through the clouds. “Don’t worry, lovely tourist. We’ll teach you. You’ll be great. You just have to try. Put your best foot forward!” And then she laughed at her own inadvertent joke. “Let’s go!”

Before Uma could drag her away, giggling like a kindergarten teacher who’d had one too many Kool-Aids, Patience leaned over and scarfed a quick bite of Angie’s burger.

* * * *